Properly sized animations (teens and adults)
One of the neatest KW extensions to TS3 is the High School. Chock full of role-playing possibilities, one of the features being developed is woohoo bribing. The adult professor or headmaster can be convinced to improve the teen's grade in return for certain...considerations. Yup, there's more than one way to get that grade A! Now teen-adult woohoo in KW is not limited to the high school, nor does it have to happen in the context of bribery, but it is one of those places where it all comes together. Everything but the animations, unfortunately. To understand the problem, realize that the Sim Teen is the same mesh as the Young Adult/Adult/Elder mesh, but in the game, it is dynamically scaled down to 94% the size. But EA didn't make teen-specific animations because that's extra work. The scaled teen rig runs an animation sized for adults. It works because EA just limits the range of motion of ALL the teen-and-older animations so that it looks OK for both adults and teens. This works fine for animations that involve just one Sim. A teen washing mopping the floor or an adult mopping the floor -- both look OK. The compromise happens when two Sims are interacting -- now you have two different animations happening in sync. Imagine an adult and a teen chatting from 2 or 3 feet apart. They both make exactly the same conversational gestures like shoulder shrugs over the course of the animation at different points. It works because those gestures don't need to line up with each other. The teen's shrug is actually happening at 94% of the height that was plotted in the animation, but so what? But with woohoo interactions, lining up is critical. We've all seen the an adult Sim making out with the Sim teen's forehead. Let's not even broach the subject of pelvic alignment! The animations are designed for two rigs that have all their "bits" exactly at the same height. Substitute a rig at 94% the size when the animation plays, and you see what happens when the animations are supposed to touch. By the way, in Sims 4, they fixed this. Well, not really, They just made teens the same size as adults to avoid dealing with the issue entirely! Honestly, I'm not impressed with TS4. Everything I've learned makes me think it's a lesser game in a glossier package. More form, less function. Yuck. ledealBut back to animations. Does the teen-adult alignment issue matter? I think it might, but animations take time to create. I have learned a fair amount about animations in a short time (including that many people giving tutorials online aren't familiar with Blender -- not one person suggested the obvious step of switching to a joint's local coordinate system when bending!), and I have created a couple of test animations. Tackling the alignment issue with a custom teen-adult animation seems like a challenge that would teach me lot about effective animation, but is there a market for more of the same? Offer your thoughts in the comments below.